Latest / Finding God at Work / 17: Telling What God Has Done for You

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17: Telling What God Has Done for You · Finding God at Work

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, I'm Chris.
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This is Finding God at Work.
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Our current series is Gentle Witnesses, sharing the
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good news at work in a way that
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actually makes sense.
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I want to start by asking you to
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think of something you are an evangelist about
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other than Jesus or Christianity.
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Is there something where people who know you
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just kind of know that you want them
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to get in on this thing, whatever it
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is?
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For me, it is the project management tool
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Asana.
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I am an Asana evangelist.
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I literally just emailed my boss's boss today
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talking about project management and including a link
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from Asana's website to try and clarify, like,
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hey, here's some ways we could do some
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asynchronous communication that would be more efficient for
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the way we're managing these projects.
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I love Asana.
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And what do I do?
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When people ask me about Asana, I talk
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about what difference Asana has made in my
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own life.
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I'm like, I used to manage projects in
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Google Docs with, like, checklists.
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And then I used Trello.
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But then when I found Asana, it was
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like, it was a new day for project
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management.
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I was able to keep track of due
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dates for myself way better.
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I could show logical connections between tasks that
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needed to be done.
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It's just so clear, and I can go
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on and on because of my personal experience.
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So as we're talking about having conversations with
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our friends about spiritual life, one of the
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most powerful things we can do is share
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our own experience with Jesus, to share our
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own story.
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And this is something I've kind of mentioned
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off to the side a couple of times
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in previous episodes.
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So I wanted to just take a full
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episode and look at how can we share
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our story?
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Now, we've got paradigms for this in the
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Bible itself.
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So in the ministry of Jesus, you might
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remember this story of this man who was
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oppressed by demons.
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He was very violent.
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He lived among the tombs in a region
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called the Gerasenes.
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The very ending of that story is really
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poignant.
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This is Mark, chapter five, starting in verse
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18.
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As Jesus was getting into the boat, the
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man who had been possessed with demons begged
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him that he might be with him.
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And Jesus did not permit him, but said
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to him, go home to your friends and
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tell them how much the Lord has done
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for you and how he has had mercy
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on you.
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And he went away and began to proclaim
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in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done
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for him and everyone marveled.
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Now this is striking for a lot of
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reasons.
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One is that this man wants to be
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with Jesus.
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This is a really strong intuition, but Jesus
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actually commissions him to do something different.
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He's like, I don't want you to come
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travel with me and my other disciples.
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I want you to go back to your
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home and minister there.
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So there's kind of a paradigm here for
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us.
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Some of us might think that we have
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some big, exciting thing we need to do
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for the Lord because we love Jesus.
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But Jesus actually sends us maybe somewhere else,
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somewhere unexpected.
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Maybe he sends us quote unquote back home
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to talk to our friends.
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And that's something that I think is really
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important for you to not think that you're
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missing out on the kingdom of God, just
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because a certain ministry opportunity didn't come together
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for you.
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Right now in your workplace, whatever your job
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is, you are being sent there and you
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can talk to your friends there about the
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things of God.
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What's also really striking is the fact that
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Jesus tells him to tell the story because
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usually after other encounters like this in the
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gospels, Jesus tells people not to tell other
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people.
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This is part of what's called the Messianic
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secret.
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Jesus wanted to keep things a little bit
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under wraps for a while for various reasons,
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so he was trying to get people to
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not talk more about him for a while.
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But this time he's just like, no, this
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guy needs to share like this guy has
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been through an experience and it's so like
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he needs to share.
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And so he tells him, go home to
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your friends and tell them how much the
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Lord has done for you and how he
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has had mercy on you.
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So this is not a commandment for everybody,
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but it's a paradigm that we can step
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inside of.
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We too have experienced things that God has
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done for us.
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We too have experienced God's mercy for us.
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And we too can tell that story to
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others.
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Now, this brings up the question of the
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evangelical subculture and the idea of sharing your
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testimony.
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So this isn't part of your experience.
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This might be a little bit of inside
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baseball for you, but for a lot of
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Christians who grew up in the evangelical movement
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or who were part of it at some
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point in their lives, there was this practice
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of sharing your testimony and the genre of
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testimony goes like this.
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I had a terrible life doing sex, drugs,
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and rock and roll.
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And then I found Jesus and now things
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are great.
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Uh, and it can be difficult to fit
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your own life into that genre.
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If that's not your story, like that's not
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my story.
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I knew Jesus from a very young age,
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had a very authentic coming to faith when
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I was quite young, did not do sex,
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drugs, and rock and roll before that experience.
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And, uh, the Lord still met me in
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a, in a very genuine way.
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So, uh, I actually had a friend, uh,
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Katrina who asked me this question once.
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She's like, I've always known Jesus.
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How am I supposed to share my testimony?
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And the way that I think about this
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kind of is paralleled by the Marvel cinematic
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universe.
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So if you remember way back when, when
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the MCU movies were first coming out, it
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was a really straightforward genre.
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The first ones you didn't even realize were
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connected to each other, right?
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Like there was an incredible Hulk movie and
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it was just like, Oh, that's, that's an
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incredible Hulk movie.
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There it is now the movie's over and
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there was a Captain America movie.
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And it's like, okay, same thing.
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There's an Iron Man movie and they're not
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really connected.
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And so it's like a genre that people
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are familiar with, but then they had the
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Avengers and like all of them came together
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into a single movie and it's like, wow,
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it's all, it's all together.
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Wow.
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This is a new genre.
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Uh, but then once that was established, people
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actually went with it.
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They could handle all sorts of genre things
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after that.
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Things could be told out of order.
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So like the Captain Marvel, that one set
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way earlier than most of the other ones.
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And yet people were okay with that.
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They're like, Oh, different point in the timeline.
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Totally fine.
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We can handle it.
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Then like Spider-Man, they just skipped his
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origin story entirely.
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They're like, that's been done too many times.
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We're just going to start with him already
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having his powers as a high school student,
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brilliant move.
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Uh, and so audiences can keep up with
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more than just the simple genre.
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This is what we've learned from the MCU.
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Now there's like multiple universes.
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People can handle all sorts of things.
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Okay.
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It's the same thing for a testimony.
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Your testimony does not have to fit a
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boilerplate genre to be a story of what
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God has done for you.
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Right.
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You just need to have the, the ingredients
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of the story.
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So just like a, like a superhero movie,
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what are the key ingredients, you got to
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have a superhero.
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You got to have some sort of villain,
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usually a super villain.
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You've got to have some fun action sequences
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and some explosions.
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And in the MCU, you got to have
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some like quirky jokes along the way somehow.
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And like all of those things are there,
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even though the genre is mixed up.
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So it's not so much does my story
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fit this specific timeline.
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That's not the point.
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The point is, does my story have these
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ingredients?
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And I would say the ingredients of a
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good news story are your experience with sin
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and the consequences of sin.
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The difference that Jesus is making in your
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life now, what it means for you to
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place your faith in Jesus and what changes
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have come in your life because of him.
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So there's kind of these four key ingredients,
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sin and its consequences, Jesus, faith, and change
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or changes.
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And these can come in different orders for
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different people.
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And they come over and over again in
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our lives.
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When you read the Bible, it's not like
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God just does one thing in somebody's life
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and then it's perfect forever.
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Like in that sense, the most simplistic version
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of the evangelical testimony story where it's like,
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my life is now free of problems is
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not even biblical.
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But what the Bible does have is stories
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and stories and stories, sometimes in the same
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person's life, God keeps working in our lives
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over and over and over again, we keep
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understanding who he is and his love more
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and more deeply over time.
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And so you can just share what I
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call a present tense testimony.
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It doesn't have to be the story of
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how you came to faith, but it's a
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story of how these ingredients have come together
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in your life in some way, sin, Jesus,
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faith, and changes.
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This is something that I discovered when I
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was doing student ministry with college students at
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the University of Illinois at Chicago, I realized
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a lot of these students did not have
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the same kind of experience that I did
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when I was younger, like my story of
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like how I came to faith would not
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connect with them, it just wasn't part of
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their world.
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But I realized I had a significant experience
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of anxiety and depression.
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And so did my wife Katie.
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And as I shared about how we were
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meeting Jesus in the midst of facing that
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mental health difficulty that resonated with students a
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lot, cause a lot of them had experience
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with anxiety and depression too.
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So the way that I kind of packaged
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it was, okay, right now we're going through
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this fill in the blank, this kind of
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sin or difficulty, but in the middle of
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it, we're also experiencing fill in the blank,
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good things from Jesus, the presence of Jesus
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in our lives.
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And as I fill in the blank, place
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my faith in Jesus.
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What does it look like to place my
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faith in Jesus?
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I'm grateful for fill in the blank, the
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changes he's making in my life.
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So to kind of put that all together
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right now, we're going through this difficulty with
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mental health challenges, anxiety and depression.
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Katie's been facing that I've been facing that,
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but in the middle of that, I have
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experienced the love of God in the church,
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the Christian community, people have brought meals for
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us.
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People have talked to us.
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We found great counselors that have been recommended
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to us by Christians that we trust.
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And as I receive that love, I feel
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like I'm also trusting in Jesus, that I'm
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trusting that his love for me is real.
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That's part of what it means for me
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to put my faith in him.
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And I feel like even though the anxiety
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doesn't magically go away, I'm feeling the presence
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of God in the middle of it.
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And that's a change in my life.
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So that's, that's a testimony.
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I am telling people what God has done
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for me and how he has had mercy
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on me.
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And that's something that you can do too.
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So in the, this is one of those
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podcast episodes for which the attached resource that
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we make available on our website might be
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really helpful.
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It'll kind of have that like fill in
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the blank map that you can use if
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you would like to.
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Um, there's also a blog post about this
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that we can link to, um, that I
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wrote.
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It's actually really funny cause my friend Katrina
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asked me this question because I was soliciting
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questions for the blog.
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And now that blog post, like we've been
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blogging for like more than five years is
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like the most read blog post by a
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long shot, like way more than number two.
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And I think it's because a lot of
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Christians type this question into Google or other
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search engines.
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Like I'm already Christian.
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How do I share my testimony?
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And because like the blog titles are similar
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to that, it's like it's high on the
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results page.
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So I don't know if they actually liked
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liked it that much, but they at least
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clicked the title to read it.
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So you can too, if you would like
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to anyways, extra resources on this episode.
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But the point is just like Jesus commissioned
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this man who had been delivered from demonic
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oppression to share with his friends, we can
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share whatever Jesus has genuinely done in our
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lives with our friends.
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It doesn't have to fit a specific genre.
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We can share the genuine ingredients of life
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change that we've experienced in the ways that
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we really have, and that will be a
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testimony to our friends that will show them
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what the kingdom of God is like Lord
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Jesus.
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Thank you for being patient with us, for
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working in our lives again and again and
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again, as we need to keep learning your
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way and unlearning the ways that we fall
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into because of sin and its consequences help
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us to pay attention to the story you're
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telling in our life and the, and the
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stories that you're telling in our life in
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different ways and give us wisdom on when
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you're asking us to go and tell our
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friends, those stories, do your work in us
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as we do our work with you.
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Thanks for listening.
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